Such is My Beyond
by Eris R. Lebeau
Summary: Even before he became a Peacekeeper, Crais destroyed a life with his ambition. Now Talyn may pay the price.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: A World With No Name**

_Where are we now? _Talyn demands.

It's one of his favorite questions, along with the altricial "why?" and the precocial "what next?" Being linked with a juvenile Leviathan is like rearing a child that is simultaneously a toddler and an adolescent. I should have purchased more raslak at the last commerce station.

I pull myself out of bed and feel a wave of heat-induced nausea as I stand. My jacket, which I slept in to avoid hypothermia, is soaked through with sweat, and I fumble with the closure, eager to rid myself of the heavy garment. Even the light fabric of my shirt feels cloying, and I toss it on the bed alongside my jacket. I stagger to the sink, filled with fantasies of drenching my head in cool water, but what comes from the faucet is warm enough to make soup. I splash my face anyway, and drink several double-handfuls.

Talyn's congealation coils are failing again, and until I can find a replacement, his internal temperature will continue to fluctuate between frigid and sweltering. The former is a mere annoyance, the latter a true terror. In the event that I do succumb to Sebacean heat delirium, I have drilled Talyn many times on the proper course of action: setting a collision course for the nearest asteroid or uninhabited moon. Without me to guide him, he would be too vulnerable, and the probability of him falling into the wrong hands would escalate. He says he understands the necessity of avoiding Peacekeeper control at all costs, and I believe he would indeed have the courage to do what is required. Our lives, like our minds, are linked, which means that each time the temperature rises, I fear for him.

I stumble to the console and bring up the local star chart. "We are near my former home. Here." I reach through the projected stars to touch one unassuming sun, knowing the soil my father tilled is on the fourth planet from it.

_But where are we? _

"I have told you." I remember telling him microts ago and am almost certain I spoke aloud, not that it should matter with Talyn. After a moment of confusion, it dawns on me that he wants a designation. "Neither the planet nor the star has a name. It's an agrarian colony thousands of cycles old."

My head throbs, and the stars in front of me begin to shimmer like sequins on a dancer's dress. No longer trusting my legs to hold me, I sink into a chair near the console.

_No name for the planet or the star? Didn't that get confusing? _

"Why would it? There was simply 'the sun' and 'the world'. Everything else was 'beyond'. A bit melodramatic in retrospect, but those were all the names we needed."

Talyn is silent for a moment, digesting the idea of a world with no name. When he realizes the implications of that fact, horror shudders through his circuitry. _That means you were trapped there! The Peacekeepers left you there on that planet with no way to leave? _

"No legitimate way, save selection, which is why most thought it such an honor, a chance to see what's _beyond. _Only the best of us were taken. Or so we were told." I laugh as I recall my eagerness to become a Peacekeeper. My mind is now melting like an ice cube, and the part that remains cohesive tells me there is nothing funny about a child being wrested from his home, or about a man having his expectations shattered. Still, I chuckle, feeling nothing but schadenfreude for my former self.

"Of course there were occasional visits from illicit traders," I continue. "Some managed to leave the planet in a smuggler's hold. Most didn't want to leave. They were too busy thinking about the next harvest, our survival. It was enough for them. Never for me."

Regret-- I tell myself it is a luxury in which I never indulge, but in reality it is a beast I keep caged, and in the heat it has managed to escape. Humor flees to a far-off corner of my mind, chased by loathing and rage, or perhaps washed away by the streaming sweat that flows across my face, burning like acid. Like a weak man under torture, I confess without being asked a question, flaunting the old scars I usually manage to hide even from Talyn.

"I was _glad _to be chosen. Glad! And not just because my father said it was such a great honor. Because I wanted to see _beyond, _wanted it so badly I would give up anything. Even my soul, Talyn."

_I don't understand. _

"A soul! It's a thing... that isn't something. But it's very important. Peacekeepers don't have them."

_No, I know what a soul is. I just don't know how you can give one up._

"We had priests on the world, men whose job it was to rant about gods." I run my hand across my brow, brushing away wet wisps of hair as I try to recall my point. "These priests seem to think a soul is some kind of score card, and the gods use it to mark our acts of evil. If Peacekeepers had souls the gods would run out of ink. So, clearly, we do not!"

_I think you need to drink more water. I cut power to the water heating coils for two macrots. It should be better now. _

"I hardly need to be told when to drink!" He tries to mother me, as if I were anywhere close to heat delirium. This is merely a moment of discomfort. Still, the thought of cool water is too tempting to resist.

I stand, but when I release the back of the chair, I stumble to my knees and fall forward, catching myself on my hands. "Can't you maintain a level course?"

Not expecting an answer, I crawl on hands and knees to the sink, just in case Talyn decides to yaw without warning again. Once there, I pull myself to my feet, douse my head, and then drink deeply. The chilled water is like a healing drought from some childhood tale of magic. I splash it over my body, not caring that my pants are now soaked through. My balance restored, I make my way back to the table and sit. 

_Do you ever want to go back? _

I try to imagine that my current discomfort is the result of too many arns in the sun instead of an out-of-spec congealation coil, that the weight on my shoulders is the literal mass of a sack of grain and not the burden of responsibility. "You can never revisit your origins, Talyn."

_But you said that's where we are._

"It's an expression. It means that even if you do return, things will be changed, or you will be, and so everything will seem different." Expecting him to extrapolate may be too much, so I add, "No, I do not wish to return."

How could I face my mother and father after breaking my vow to protect Tauvo? Worse yet, after letting over a cycle pass without returning to inform them of the loss. What would be accomplished by such actions? Better to let them tip back their earthenware mugs of grain-ail and toast their sons, Peacekeepers proudly wearing the family name along with their medals and stripes. The stories they no doubt tell themselves are far more glorious than the truth. Tauvo and I were never storybook heroes; he was a soldier following orders no matter how heinous those orders were, and I-- I gave some of the worst orders myself. We created chaos and suffering, and the only peace we ever kept was the peace of the dead left in our wake.

_The hybrid project. _

Talyn's thought startles me. I often forget he reads my mind, even when I don't intend him to. At first I think he is arguing with me, making a case for my redemption; after all, in a corner of his mind that he tries to hide, he thinks of me as his father. But the sentiment that accompanies his words is not one of disagreement. Talyn has his own set of hazmots, specters of loss and remorse that haunt his data spools. The hybrid project is my most spectacular failure and at the same time, the only remnant of my Peacekeeper service that gives me any measure of pride.

So many contradictions. Were I a machine, I would probably suffer a few crossed wires myself. Like the coil failure that even now is eroding my brain.

"Talyn, how long will it take to get here?" I point to a spot on the star chart, zooming in until I can pinpoint a specific moon. The commerce station there is notorious for providing "anything anyone needs," which hopefully includes replacement parts for Leviathans.

_Three arns travel, at most._

"Three arns. Even if the temperature rises more, the damage should be reversible."

_Frell, I'm sorry. I'm doing the best I can. _

I wave a hand dismissively at his apology. "Hardly your fault. And remember that type of language is an admission of lacking control. It's beneath you."

I never should have let that coarse merchant's daughter get a hold of his transponder. Not that Aeryn Sun and Rygel did anything to elevate Talyn's vocabulary, but he was never casually crude until recently. That tiny regret is like a pebble in the shoe of a man whose head is about to blown off, and I find it suddenly funny. I feel Talyn's confusion but am unable to formulate a response that would explain why I laugh.

I really should have bought more raslak at the last commerce station. I could have poured it over my head in the hopes that the cooling evaporation would forestall insanity. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: A Duck-tape Solution**

I awake in a nest of sodden bedding, shivering under the clammy sheets. At first, I wonder how it is that I am still alive after so much fluid has escaped my body. Then I see the glistening flecks scattered over my chest and realize someone has dumped a bucket of ice water over me.

"Talyn? I did not authorize you to allow anyone to board. Please explain."

_I sent a distress signal when we arrived at the commerce station. A man came with a bucket of cold water. He left a chip on the table. _

"You took an unnecessary risk!" I get up and change into dry clothing, which improves my morale more than I care to admit. The concrete provocation of being drenched in cold water is more rousing than the technical fact that Talyn disobeyed a standing order. Still, he risked his own life as well as mine, so I feign outrage. "I told you three arns of elevated temperature would not cause permanent damage. I would have recovered on my own, which means you put yourself in jeopardy without cause. Unacceptable!"

_Sorry. _

He isn't, but I don't bother arguing. Like the irrational, sulking child he is, he blames himself for the failure of the temperature controls, and in his mind, that blame justifies his rash course of action. In truth, he may have saved my life. The last thing I remember is sitting at the table, staring at the twinkling pinpoint that represents the sun of my former world. The star chart is gone now, but as Talyn mentioned, someone has left a holochip. I pick it up off the table and press it between my thumb and finger. The holographic head of a smiling Sebaccean man pops into existence.

He looks like someone who could have come from my world, olive-skinned and dark haired, with a narrow, hooked nose and thick black beard. His grin reveals a golden tooth, which must be an affectation. A business man with any respectable level of success would able to afford a convincing prosthesis. Every few microts, his hologram offers a conspiratorial wink, as if he has just confided a secret of great import.

The chip has no sound, but a banner of written words encircles the man's head. The letters are made to look like sparkling gold, suggesting a crown. I read aloud, "Visit Phendrick's Domain for whatever treasures you desire. Goods from under every sun and the best of the void, too!"

_Will he have replacement coils? _

I shrug. "He may be able to obtain them for a price."

_Obtain how?_

I should have expected him to ask. Like Crichton, Talyn cares for all sentient beings until he is given a reason not to, and for his own race especially. He will not like the answer, but I don't bother trying to lie to him. Better to have the matter settled before the new coils are installed. If Talyn were to reject a part of himself because of some foolish moral objection, the result could be disastrous.

"Most likely by scavenging from dead or dying Leviathans. The probability that a scavenger would butcher a healthy Leviathan for parts is almost negligible. An in tact Leviathan has too much value as a transport to make such a harvest profitable."

_When the cost of repair is greater than the profit a Leviathan can earn, he's killed and scrapped? _

"Not always. Many are allowed to return to the sacred space where they die in peace." Others are scrapped alive, like the ones under Peacekeeper control. Parts are taken as needed, wrenched from the biomechanoid flesh by techs who don't ask if that flesh is alive or dead. They are ordered not to ask.

Rage boils through Talyn's circuits. He wants to fire his cannon at those who harm Leviathans without knowing who it is he wants to kill. Unless he agrees to take something from a fellow Leviathan, he will be unable to continue carrying and protecting me. The prospect of two unbearable alternatives has his mind running in pointless, agonized loops.

I move to stand against the wall, laying one hand on it, fingers spread. "Talyn..." I allow my hand to move down the wall in a soothing gesture, but neither my voice nor my touch has any effect. He wants a promise from me, one I should not make. His distress has a stronger effect upon me than any order from high command ever could.

I sigh, irritated to be giving in so easily. "I will demand that the replacement coils are not salvaged from a living Leviathan. Phendrick answered your distress call, so surely you would trust his word?"

_No. Trusting strangers is an unnecessary risk. Besides, you don't trust him. Maybe he can tell us where to find some ourselves. Or where to find someone who can repair mine. Until we do, the DRD's need a spool of solder to make a temporary repair. _

"A spool of solder." I snort, recalling Crichton's reminiscence about a substance called "duck-tape". Perhaps Phendrick's promise of having goods from under every sun will hold, and I will find some of Crichton's miraculous material. If Talyn makes a habit of refusing proper repairs, he will need a hold full of it, and I will find myself traveling the uncharted territories in a sentient vessel comprised mostly of the shiny, sticky stuff.

"Kat?" I scan the floor for the DRD, knowing its brown, oval hull won't be far. The machine is the only functional remnant of a Leviathan called Kateri, and though it works well with Talyn's sleek, red DRDs, it prefers to follow me. Despite it's adherence to this rather odd tracking algorithm, it has remarkably good sense, and I would trust Kat's judgment over Talyn's in any matter.

The DRD emerges from underneath the bed.

"Can you and the others perform a temporary solder to repair the congealation coils?" I ask, bending over slightly.

Kat wiggles it's antenni slowly, the way a Sebaccean might turn his head when considering a difficult dilemma. After a few microts, it moves forward and delivers a single sharp tap to the toe of my boot. This is Kat's way of answering in the affirmative, so I nod my agreement with Talyn.

"Very well. For now, a spool of solder, and information. We may be asked for something in return. Are you prepared to ferry passengers or carry cargo?"

_I'd rather fight. You were offered ten thousand credits to destroy that Luxan pirate vessel. _

"And I refused the offer. We cannot afford to leave a trail of wreckage behind us, not when we are attempting to evade the Peacekeepers. I will not continue this discussion."

_Those people probably hired the Peacekeepers to protect them. Because you refused to let me protect them. Because you don't want me to be what I was born to be. _

"One day when you are strong enough, you may be whatever it is you wish."

Kat swings its antenni from side to side in a vigorous gesture of disagreement.

"And until then, you must trust my judgment," I continue.

Kat delivers a single tap to the floor, hard enough that the vibration reverberates through my boot.

_Kat always sides with you. That's why my DRDs don't associate with it any more than they have to. They think it has faulty programming. _

"I am sure that sentiment is mutual. Now, can I trust you with the responsibility of carrying passengers or cargo?"

_I'll be a frelling transport. For now. _

"That would make me very proud, Talyn." Those simple, sincere words embarrass him into awkward silence. I squat down and touch Kat's shell. "Keep watch. Send a comm signal if anything is amiss."

Kat's response is another vehement, perhaps impatient, tap.

_Even Kat knows you're paranoid. _

"Patterns transfer through the link."

I meant the words as a joke, but as I exit the ship I wonder-- is Talyn's instability exacerbated by my own fears, or have his defective algorithms been impressed upon me? Would that Aeryn Sun were linked with us. Like all good soldiers, she has a quality I was never able to attain, or even feign convincingly: the ability to trust, to live in this moment without worrying over the next. She would complete Talyn, her consciousness a true and genuine repair rather than a duck-tape solution. 

For now, he has me, and Kat. With a spool of solder, it will have to be enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: What it Means to Lose One's Soul**

At the commerce moon, I spend nearly an arn in my transport, waiting for those in the control tower to decide to open the docking bay. A variety of other vessels hover close to mine, and once a threshold number is reached, the doors will open to admit us all. The policy is an efficient one, no doubt designed to conserve atmosphere, but I don't recall it being in place last time I was here.

I lace my fingers behind my head and lean back, stretching my legs out in front of me. The air in the transport is pleasantly cool, like the temperature-optimized atmosphere in the Peacekeeper vessel all those cycles back. We were here to be outfitted before our final transfer to the command carrier, a place so many metras from the world that the number became a long string of placeholders that simply meant "far". For Tauvo, the sight of the buildings on the commerce moon was a sharp reminder of the close-built wooden houses in our village, and the control tower appeared reminiscent of the stone church spire.

He began to cry as we watched the approach on the Peacekeeper transport's view screen, and I felt as if the fifty-seven other recruits were all watching him, pointing and laughing. In truth, most of them were probably thanking the gods that they were _not_ bursting into homesick tears, but all I saw was my miserable brother calling unwanted attention to himself, and for his sake, I had to stop it. I punched him on the arm hard enough to shock him out of his sniveling, and I reminded him that Captain Raydel Durk, the hero of our bedtime stories, would never be seen crying. The tactic worked, though later I would wish I had stopped at the physical blow.

Now, on the view screen of my transport, I see the doors of the docking bay open. The motley vessels around me stampede inside, but I linger a moment in the void, unwilling to risk a collision for the sake of a landing spot close to the main doors. Once the chaos has subsided, I pull in between a compact transport that looks like Kalish workmanship and a cargo runner that appears to be welded together from multifarious scraps. After a few macrots, a klaxon sounds, indicating that atmosphere has been reestablished, and beings begin exiting their transports and making their way toward the main door.

I join the throng of sentient lifeforms, half of which I cannot identify as belonging to a known race. I shudder as a furry appendage brushes my arm and its owner mutters a series of whistles that could be an apology or a string of curses. The sample of language is too small for my translator microbes to adapt. The creature smells like stale food cubes, or perhaps the odor comes from the scaly thing in front of me and its brood of smaller scaly things, all shoving each other and dealing playful blows with their suction cup covered tentacles. I swallow a surge of bile and push past the aliens, stepping over the smallest ones.

"_Always keep three rifle-lengths between yourself an alien!" _The remembered words of Recruiter Deera ring in my mind as I recall being herded through these very doors_. _

"_We'll see aliens here?" Tauvo asked, his tone half wonder and half trepidation. _

"_Course we will! That's why they had us..." I struggled to remember the word. "Immunized. So we don't get contaminated. But they don't know if they got us protected against all the different aliens we're going to see, so you have to stay away from all of them, just in case they have germs." _

"_I don't care if they have germs or not. They're disgusting." A girl my own age shuddered theatrically. _

"_Why?" Tauvo demanded. He had always loved picture books with fantastic creatures and had never grown tired of hearing stories about the denizens of far-off worlds. _

"_Be-cause," the girl said, speaking in a slow drawl that oozed contempt, "they have too many arms and legs, or too few, or too much hair, or none, or scales, or they're the wrong color, or they do strange things, or they make weird sounds..." _

"_Doesn't matter," I interrupted. "Wouldn't matter if they looked just like us. They're aliens, so they're not people, and you can't trust 'em. 'Every race has its own agenda.' Didn't you listen to Recruiter Hyndrip?"_

"_I guess, but..." Tauvo shrugged and looked down at the floor. _

"_But nothing." I clapped a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Don't worry. I'll protect you from the aliens." _

Now, as I find myself carried along with the kaleidoscopic crowd of life forms, I realize just how quickly the Peacekeepers began their brutal reshaping of our minds. They stole our glorious "beyond" by taking the fanciful creatures that populated Tauvo's imagined universe and replacing them with hateful aliens. They ripped away a young boy's sense of wonder, leaving xenophobia and paranoia in its place. I envy Talyn his inability to understand what it means to lose one's soul.

Even now, I make a mental estimate of three rifle lengths, though I would be lucky to have a hand's breadth between me and the slug-like being in front of me. If I recall correctly, the Peacekeeper outfitter is to the left, so I make a sharp right and walk past food stalls that reek with the culinary atrocities of a thousand cultures. Innumerable languages fill the air around me, merging into a sort of white noise that is not unpleasant, though too loud. When I stare into the crowd, not focusing on any one being, the people become a sort of visual noise, a collage of fabrics and skins, fur and scales.

As a Peacekeeper, I could not have visited such a place without experiencing near panic over the prospect of becoming irreversibly contaminated. Thinking back, I remember Tauvo's analysis and see it for the wisdom it was: _"Aren't the aliens irreversibly contaminated by _being_ aliens? Cause if they are, then it must not be so bad, right? They don't mind." _At the time, that musing earned him a punch on the shoulder and an admonition about asking too many questions. Now, the memory of his words helps me push away my lingering Peacekeeper prejudice and follow a familiar scent wafting from an establishment ahead.

The place must be serving food imported from the world, which is only a short transport ride away. I can smell a bread baked from the grain I helped harvest each cycle, the ale my father brewed from it, and the complex scent of the spice plants I remember from my mother's stew pot. I grew up knowing that our grain harvest served the Peacekeepers. They take the bulk of each crop and process it into food cubes, rendering it bland and unrecognizable, soulless. Somewhere ahead, the stuff of my world is being presented as it should be, and I quicken my pace.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: The Titanium Drannit

The gigantic sign spells out the name of the establishment in ten languages, including Protean, which is composed of varying sequences of light flashes. Any reasonably educated traveler is thus made aware that he is about to enter a tavern known as the Titanium Drannit. The walls of this place, like those of most businesses on the commerce moon, are hung canvas, but a low roof, complete with thick wooden beams, has been added for atmosphere. The tables are of the same rough-hewn boards, held together with heavy crossbars of some half-corroded metal.

A blond Sebacean girl in a worn dress makes her way between the tables, a tray hoisted high above her head. I sit at the only empty table I can find and watch her, admiring the skill with which she evades her customers' lower limbs, tails, and haphazardly strewn chairs. A furry, simian being pats her behind as she bends to serve a blue concoction to a Nebari man, but instead of pulling out a pulse pistol, or even striking the creature, she only smiles, revealing crooked front teeth. I have seen few free Sebaceans in my adult life, and in some ways this girl is as alien to me as her assorted clientèle.

She stops at my table, bending forward slightly to display her assets to full advantage and flashes that crooked-toothed smile once more. She balances the tray on one shoulder now, the muscles of her arm tensed but not trembling. "Shall I bring you a meal?"

I nod, and before I can ask about where I might find a spool of solder, she scurries away, darting behind the bar and through a door flap in the hung canvas wall.

"My friend!" A voice as smooth and strong as well-aged raslak cuts through the noise. "I hardly recognized you sitting up and fully clothed."

Without being invited, a man I _do_ easily recognize slides into a chair at my table. He has a heavy limp, and when he sits, his weak leg sprawls awkwardly to the side as if it will not bend properly. If any of the other patrons are shocked by his crass insinuation, they give no sign. I suspect most of them are too absorbed in their own conversations to care.

"Phendrik. I appreciate your timely assistance."

He waves both hands in front of his face. "No matter, no matter. We are practically brothers, you and I. Surely cousins at least, Bialar Crais."

I wince at the sound of my own name and feel a rising surge of panic. "Then the reward beacons have preceded me?"

He raises an eyebrow and shakes his head in puzzlement, but before he can reply, the girl returns with a heavily laden tray and sets a plate and a mug in front of me. Phendrik catches her wrist after she releases the mug.

Still balancing the tray on one shoulder with her free hand, she twists his arm behind his head and pulls hard enough to elicit a whimper from him. "What did I tell you about touching me?"

"Ah! I thought you were joking!" Phendrik squirms, which only causes her to twist harder. "Please, Mari, let me go!"

She releases him and then turns to serve drinks to a pair of hairy, three-armed beings.

Phendrik half-turns in his chair and glares at her back. "Worthless frelling tralk..." He shakes his head and turns back to face me with his holochip smile. "What's this about reward beacons?"

I wave a hand. "A jest in the same vein as yours, and clearly of equal humor. Forgive my foolishness. I was merely surprised you remembered my name."

"The world is a small place, Bialar, the number of boys selected smaller still. Two brothers, both granted the honor? You were remembered." His smile widens, but his eyes tighten.

I snort. "A dubious honor at best. Enough of the past. I need a coil of solder and directions to a Leviathan salvage area. Care to do business?"

Phendrick nods. "I can help you. Coordinates for my shop are on the holochip. It has been good to see you again, my friend." He rises, leaning heavily on the back of his chair as he gains his footing, and limps out the door. If he had any thoughts of eating here, Mari no doubt dispelled them with her show of force.

As I eat the food on my plate, I regret coming here. After the Titanium Drannit, it will be difficult to return to space rations. I should have spared myself from yet another reminder of the cost of living as a fugitive.

Mari returns to take my plate, piling it atop a stack of others on her tray.

"You're strong enough to be a Peacekeeper," I comment. "And vicious enough, picking on a cripple like Phendrick."

She rolls her eyes. "I _am _a Peacekeeper, starting next weeken. They're recruiting volunteers now. Phendrik didn't like hearing that when I told him. He wants me to stay here, though the way he had of showing me wasn't exactly nice. So don't feel sorry for that pathetic frellnik."

"Phendrik is right. You have an honest living here. No matter what you think you will accomplish, it is not worth what you will lose." I don't expect her to listen, but I feel compelled to warn her anyway.

"What I _think_ I'll accomplish? How about personal security detail for Captain Legrain? That's my assignment. I know what you're thinking, by the way, and it's only half right. I'm a marksman. You see any Protean rats around here?"

"Rats?" I repeat.

"Exactly! I hunt them down for the bounty. Hunted them, anyway. I kind of put myself out of business there." She shrugs, causing the stack of plates to rattle and teeter alarmingly.

"For a price, I could bring you a crate of Protean rats for target practice." I smile, but I am only half-joking. My few coins are trickling away all too rapidly, and I will have to find transport work for Talyn.

"You don't get it, do you? I want better than being groped by members of every species in the uncharted territories, dancing on tables, and shooting rats."

"Then perhaps you have made the correct choice. You'll be shooting members of every species in the uncharted territories and getting groped by the rats above you in the chain of command. And Peacekeepers don't dance."

She frowns and tilts her head to one side. "Surely to celebrate a victory..."

I shake my head. "We celebrated by getting drunk and passing around our battle trophies. I know where from I speak, Mari. I did not have a choice. You do."

"Dren. Like I'd listen to a frelling _deserter_. Oh, don't worry. I won't turn you in. Sebacean brotherhood and all that. I do have a sense of honor."

She pivots and walks away. She probably doesn't hear me say, "It's one of the first things they'll take from you."


End file.
